Integrated circuits (IC) are miniaturized electronic circuits that are typically manufactured from a semiconductor material (often, silicon). Due to the reliability of integrated circuits and developments within the industry that allow ICs to be mass produced, the usage of integrated circuits has become ubiquitous in the manufacture of many commercial electronics equipment produced today and have contributed significantly to the proliferation and development of the electronics industry. ICs are often combined to form products including various devices or components which both comprise an underlying computing system, and are integrated as peripheral devices in the computing system.
IC developers typically design an IC with an intended lifetime (e.g., 5 years) before failure. During a typical design phase for an IC, an IC developer generally specifies the voltages and frequencies at which the IC or “chip” is going to operate with and/or under. However, these operating conditions (along with temperature) may contribute to aging effects that naturally occur with silicon or like-material based products. These conditions furthermore can change as aging effects and wear are accumulated by an IC product. For example, a product which requires a certain voltage to operate under a specific frequency at the beginning of the lifetime of the product may require a higher voltage to operate under the same frequency later in the lifetime of the product, due to the aging effect. Moreover, the operating conditions can fluctuate drastically and frequently, depending on usage of the underlying computing system—which, naturally, can vary from user to user. As a result, designing an IC with sufficient tolerances to last the intended lifespan under such wildly varying conditions can be a complex process.
Conventionally, the current process involved in designing ICs to survive under presumed operating conditions for an intended lifespan is to build in enough of a margin when an IC product is built to account for aging effects over the lifetime of the product under the approximately worst-case conditions. However, such a process is highly margined. That is, very few applications of an IC product would actually be using the device or product for 100% of the time under worst-case conditions for the entire lifetime of the product. By designing products with only these specific, highly margined conditions in mind, substantial power or performance can be wasted over the lifetime of a product.
One conventional solution to this problem is to consider a more reasonable worst-case scenario. That is, to consider the intended use of a product, and to design the product with typical conditions consistent with the intended use. For example, while an IC in a server lab or farm may operate under worst-case scenarios continuously, IC products in personal computers or laptops typically experience worst-case conditions much less frequently (e.g., when the computer is in use, and not-idle). However, even in such instances, actual usage of the computer can still vary significantly between users. For those IC products which are not used to the frequency or intensity of these planned conditions, even under a more reasonable worst-case scenario planning, computing resources may be consumed inefficiently and/or unnecessarily. Meanwhile, for the IC products that exceed the reasonable worst-case scenario, the risk of an early failure due to unforeseen aging effects may be increased.